Credit-Card Fight Heats Up As Trump Backs Swipe Fee Bill

By Jon Hill

Bankers moved swiftly Tuesday to push back on President Donald Trump's late-night endorsement of legislation that he said will stop "out of control" credit-card swipe fees, his latest broadside against the credit card industry that has lenders on the defensive over costs.

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Voting Rights Orgs., Ill. Voters Ask To Fight DOJ Records Suit

By Lauraann Wood

Voter and immigrant advocacy groups are seeking, alongside individual voters, to step in to fight the U.S. government's legal pursuit of unredacted voter registration records from Illinois election officials, saying they can more appropriately defend the suit given the privacy rights and interests at stake.

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States Lose Bid To Freeze EPA Solar Grant Funds, For Now

By Rae Ann Varona

A Seattle federal judge Tuesday denied a coalition of states' bid to preliminarily block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from cutting solar power grant programs as they challenge the agency's termination of its $7 billion Biden-era "Solar for All" program.

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Ex-Duane Morris Tax Partner Charged With Murdering Wife

By Hailey Konnath

A former tax partner at Duane Morris LLP's Chicago office has been charged with killing his wife a little more than a year ago, according to an announcement made Tuesday by Illinois prosecutors.

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Illinois Justice Theis To Retire From Supreme Court Bench

By Celeste Bott

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis is retiring at the end of January after more than 40 years on the bench, with her seat to be filled through the end of her term by First District Appellate Court Justice Sanjay T. Tailor, the first Asian American to serve on the high court.

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Ill. Justices Mull COVID Screening Pay Under State Law

By Lauraann Wood

The Illinois Supreme Court should leave decades of understanding surrounding the statutory term "workweek" intact and rule that the state's minimum wage law incorporates federal limitations on compensable preliminary activities, as finding otherwise would revive a short-lived overtime regime Congress considered "disastrous," Amazon argued Tuesday.

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Blue States Say HHS Conditions Funding On Anti-Trans Bias

By Grace Elletson

A dozen Democratic state attorneys general sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, claiming the agency's threat to withhold billions of dollars in funding from states that don't hew to an executive order declaring that gender is immutable conflicts with antidiscrimination law.

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DOJ Again Demands That Pa. Turn Over Voter Data

By Elizabeth Daley

The U.S. Department of Justice again demanded that Pennsylvania turn over voters' driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, saying in Pennsylvania federal court that the information is required to be delivered under Title III of the Civil Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act.

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Ill. Judge Suggests Win For Cannabis Cashier In Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A federal magistrate judge recommended a win for a former cashier for an Illinois bakery that sells cannabis products, finding that the employer failed to respond to the entry of default, effectively admitting to overtime and tip violations under federal and state law.

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Financial Aid-Fixing Antitrust Claims Heading To Trial

By Matthew Perlman

An Illinois federal judge refused a bid from the remaining elite private universities accused of fixing financial aid offerings to end the case ahead of trial after accepting the students' view of the market, along with evidence suggesting they paid inflated costs.

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Ark. Official Urges 7th Circ. Not To Revive Pharma Rule Fight

By Emily Brill

An Illinois federal judge correctly upheld an Arkansas insurance regulation designed to protect local pharmacies, the state's insurance commissioner told the Seventh Circuit on Monday, asking the court to toss a Teamsters healthcare plan's bid to renew its challenge to the regulation.

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2026 State AI Bills That Could Expand Liability, Insurance Risk

State bills legislating artificial intelligence that are expected to pass in 2026 will reshape the liability landscape for all companies incorporating AI solutions into their business operations, as any novel private rights of action authorized under AI-related statutes signal expanding exposures, say attorneys at Wiley.

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Where States Jumped In When SEC Stepped Back In 2025

The state regulators that picked up the slack when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission scaled back enforcement last year should not be underestimated as they continue to aggressively police areas where the SEC has lost interest and probe industries where SEC leadership has actively declined to intervene, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

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5 E-Discovery Predictions For 2026 And Beyond

2026 will likely be shaped by issues ranging from artificial intelligence regulatory turbulence to potential evidence rule changes, and e-discovery professionals will need to understand how to effectively guide the responsible and defensible adoption of emerging tools, while also ensuring effective safeguards, say attorneys at Littler.

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No Jury Yet In Goldstein Trial, But Celeb Witnesses Possible

By Jared Foretek

Day two of jury selection in Tom Goldstein's tax and mortgage fraud case wrapped without a jury being seated Tuesday, but did reveal that the government could call celebrities Tobey Maguire and Kevin Hart to the stand.

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Beasley Allen Talc Work Sends 'Bad Signal,' J&J Says

By George Woolston

Johnson & Johnson's talc unit told a New Jersey appeals panel on Tuesday that a lower court's ruling permitting Beasley Allen Law Firm attorneys to represent plaintiffs in multicounty litigation over its talc-based baby powder "sends a very bad signal" to the state bar.

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Ex-Atty, Others Charged In Staged New Orleans Crash Scheme

By Hope Patti

A disbarred attorney was hit with new charges claiming that he induced a witness to commit perjury and obstructed justice in the federal investigation of an insurance scam involving staged car crashes in the New Orleans area.

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Halligan Blasts Court's 'Inquisition' Over US Atty Status

By Ryan Boysen

Lindsey Halligan said Tuesday that she is still the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia despite a recent ruling to the contrary, dismissing a federal judge's questions about why she's still using the title as an "inquisition" and a "gross abuse of power."

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Approach The Bench: Judge Bough On Ethics

Years of experience as a plaintiff's attorney influenced U.S. District Judge Stephen Bough's disclosure rules for litigators appearing in his court.

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DLA Piper Can't Counsel Hudson Hotel In Ch. 11, Judge Says

By Alex Wittenberg

A Delaware bankruptcy judge Tuesday rejected a bid by two bankrupt entities tied to the former Hudson Hotel to retain DLA Piper LLP as special counsel in their Chapter 11 case, saying the law firm's work for the entities' lender presented a conflict of interest.

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Sen. Whitehouse Presses AG On Boasberg Complaint Results

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., ranking member of the courts panel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the results of the disciplinary complaint she filed against Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia when the investigation wraps up.

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Jack Smith To Testify Publicly Next Week

By Courtney Bublé

Former special counsel Jack Smith is slated to testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 22 after, according to his attorney, having been "ready and willing" to do so for a while.

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4th Circ. Combines DOJ Appeals Of Comey, James Dismissals

By Jack Karp

The Fourth Circuit has granted the Trump administration's request to combine its previously separate appeals of the dismissals of prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

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